Emerging Leaders Series: Nadav Efraty of Desalitech

What brought you to found Desalitech?

I watched my father develop a new desalination technology that seemed like an elegant and important innovation. It had worked well in initial piloting. In the beginning, I just wanted to connect him with his first customers. I helped him sell the first reference sites for the product, and I saw the potential. I haven’t looked back since then.

What does Desalitech do?
We’ve taken reverse osmosis, which is the gold standard for treating water, and developed a winning product around a new proprietary architecture. Desalitech’s ReFlex™ product line, based on our Closed Circuit Desalination™ technology, generates 70% less wastewater, saves about 35% of the energy, and does all of that with greater reliability and flexibility. It handles a wide range of water—from sewage, to high salt well water to ultra-pure industrial process water. Desalitech Reflex is adaptive; the system automatically works according to site priorities, responding to conditions as they change. It can be tuned for high water or energy savings, high water output, or low waste.

How are you building momentum?Since we moved to the United States in 2013, we’ve built a team of seasoned industry leaders that share a vision for how technology will change water. We have developed a stream of revenues through partnerships with water treatment companies. Over the next few weeks, we will be announcing installations of new projects at several Fortune 100 companies.

As we grow, we’re seeing the potential for Reflex to address water scarcity. Its particularly exciting to be outfitting farmers to fight the drought in the Central Valley in California by unlocking brackish water sources.

Also, its exciting to see public leadership driving water tech. We’ve been fortunate to gain the support of Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, who has brought us on missions to Tokyo, Mexico City, and Israel to expand our operations.

What is your big dream for Desalitech?
Our mission is to become the leading solutions provider for high efficiency water and wastewater treatment. We’ve set our eye on industrial water treatment challenges, and we’re aiming to serve an even wider group of applications going forward.

Society cannot sustain the current waste of precious resources. Change is inevitable, and we are going to be part of it. In the process, I would like to see Desalitech set new expectations for the potential of a water tech start-up.
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Mr. Efraty is the co-founder and CEO of Desalitech. He is a recognized expert and visionary in the global desalination market. Under his leadership, the company has built a world class international team, demonstrated, productized and commercialized its product and built an international supply chain. Mr. Efraty has closed venture investments from Liberation Capital and the AquaAgro Fund. Before founding Desalitech, Mr. Efraty served in R&D project management, technology leadership and technical sales roles in the high-tech industry.

Mr. Efraty holds B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Computer Science. Away from work (as much as he is ever way from work…), Mr. Efraty is a marathon runner, plays soccer, and enjoys skiing with his wife and son. He currently lives in the greater Boston area, adjacent to the Newton headquarters of Desalitech.